Have you ever thought of your life as a story? Or, if English IV was the last time you read a book from start to finish, how about as a movie? Living in a culture that values efficiency and productivity makes it very difficult for us to view our lives as a good novel as opposed to a cost upon which our employers analyze a return on investment. Donald Miller, in his book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” tells us that a story is “a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it”. I don’t know about you, but if that is what a story is, that is my life…except maybe for the overcoming part.
A story is filled with great scenes that highlight the character; his relationships with other characters in the story; his joys, his desires, his frustrations, his limitations. This helps us understand who he is and what it is that he wants. Doesn’t this kind of sound like the earlier chapters of your life story? You floundered your way through figuring out who you were while living many scenes filled with things that make a great story. You maybe had a tender moment with your father, or grandfather. You fell down the stairs in front of the whole school at a pep assembly. You cried your eyes out when you lost your 15-year old dog. You fell in love. You got close to people and experienced everything that comes with it – the unexplainable joy of a tight friend and the grief of losing one due to distance or circumstances or hurt that unearths a gap too far-reaching to cross. And then, you discovered something that when you did it, you felt like you were born to do it.
This is when you start to figure out what it is you want, which is when the movie really starts to get good. You set out on your way for that thing. You pursue it with passion and creativity, sacrificing what you have to overcome obstacles, and then begin grasping it, and finally get to taste the sweet drink of that thing – the thing that makes you feel like you were born to do it. The story builds in intensity as you expand this thing, watch it blossom, drink more of this thing…….and then, the story takes a turn.
A negative turn. The thing gets hijacked. It’s whisked away from you. Or it just sits and molds, and becomes deformed and dries up. Can you think of a scene like this in a movie you have seen recently? If it weren’t for the fact that you know the movie has to end differently in order to sell, you really would expect to see the credits rolling soon because it seems there is no way things will go back to the way they were, or work out the way the character wanted it to. His choices are to overcome the conflict to get the thing he wants or leave the story. That he could sacrifice enough to make it possible to overcome the conflict doesn’t seem possible. Out of strength and answers, it seems the character’s only option is to grieve and move on to a different story. You sense his deep ache, and somehow you can relate to it in your own life.
Do you ever feel like this is the chapter you’re in? The last long chapter? The one where the character knows what he wants, but now is lodged in the cavern of conflict? We may not even think of it as conflict like in an action flick – but remember conflict can be simply a mental struggle. The character wants something, but maybe he is racing against age or wrestling against other things he cannot control. He has thought day and night about overcoming this and ran up against so many obstacles he’s out of the teen-age will to try anymore. He’ll need to live on the memory of the good story that it was, and hope that he can stay satisfied with much smaller things for the rest of his life.
What if your life really is a story? And what if you aren’t the only storyteller in your life? Maybe you’ve got one storyteller that seems to want nothing more than to hijack it, as evident by the deep disappointments you’ve waded through. And then perhaps you have another one that seems to be a force behind making your life a really good story – even if not evident except for the fact that you aren’t satisfied with a bad story. If you aren’t satisfied with a bad story, there must be a good story, and there must be a good storyteller. One that would die to have stories end where the character has transformed into a better character, has figured out what he really wants, and gets it.
What if your life is a story, and you have these storytellers, and what if you’re in the scene where things have taken a bad turn – a scene that goes on forever, and you’re just basically trying to figure out how you’ll stay sane until the credits roll? What if you’ve confused the “rest of your life” for chapter VI out of X and are blind to the fact that something meaningful is coming; that the great Storyteller is writing in a scene to bring the great things in your life full-circle? And what if the Storyteller knows that your story needs chapter VI for it to be a good story, and that really the main point to the story is how you’ll change in your quest to get what you want? And what if this change in your character brings also a slight change in you want anyway? What if you are just three chapters away from the part where the character overcomes the conflict and gets what he really wants?—alg
A story is filled with great scenes that highlight the character; his relationships with other characters in the story; his joys, his desires, his frustrations, his limitations. This helps us understand who he is and what it is that he wants. Doesn’t this kind of sound like the earlier chapters of your life story? You floundered your way through figuring out who you were while living many scenes filled with things that make a great story. You maybe had a tender moment with your father, or grandfather. You fell down the stairs in front of the whole school at a pep assembly. You cried your eyes out when you lost your 15-year old dog. You fell in love. You got close to people and experienced everything that comes with it – the unexplainable joy of a tight friend and the grief of losing one due to distance or circumstances or hurt that unearths a gap too far-reaching to cross. And then, you discovered something that when you did it, you felt like you were born to do it.
This is when you start to figure out what it is you want, which is when the movie really starts to get good. You set out on your way for that thing. You pursue it with passion and creativity, sacrificing what you have to overcome obstacles, and then begin grasping it, and finally get to taste the sweet drink of that thing – the thing that makes you feel like you were born to do it. The story builds in intensity as you expand this thing, watch it blossom, drink more of this thing…….and then, the story takes a turn.
A negative turn. The thing gets hijacked. It’s whisked away from you. Or it just sits and molds, and becomes deformed and dries up. Can you think of a scene like this in a movie you have seen recently? If it weren’t for the fact that you know the movie has to end differently in order to sell, you really would expect to see the credits rolling soon because it seems there is no way things will go back to the way they were, or work out the way the character wanted it to. His choices are to overcome the conflict to get the thing he wants or leave the story. That he could sacrifice enough to make it possible to overcome the conflict doesn’t seem possible. Out of strength and answers, it seems the character’s only option is to grieve and move on to a different story. You sense his deep ache, and somehow you can relate to it in your own life.
Do you ever feel like this is the chapter you’re in? The last long chapter? The one where the character knows what he wants, but now is lodged in the cavern of conflict? We may not even think of it as conflict like in an action flick – but remember conflict can be simply a mental struggle. The character wants something, but maybe he is racing against age or wrestling against other things he cannot control. He has thought day and night about overcoming this and ran up against so many obstacles he’s out of the teen-age will to try anymore. He’ll need to live on the memory of the good story that it was, and hope that he can stay satisfied with much smaller things for the rest of his life.
What if your life really is a story? And what if you aren’t the only storyteller in your life? Maybe you’ve got one storyteller that seems to want nothing more than to hijack it, as evident by the deep disappointments you’ve waded through. And then perhaps you have another one that seems to be a force behind making your life a really good story – even if not evident except for the fact that you aren’t satisfied with a bad story. If you aren’t satisfied with a bad story, there must be a good story, and there must be a good storyteller. One that would die to have stories end where the character has transformed into a better character, has figured out what he really wants, and gets it.
What if your life is a story, and you have these storytellers, and what if you’re in the scene where things have taken a bad turn – a scene that goes on forever, and you’re just basically trying to figure out how you’ll stay sane until the credits roll? What if you’ve confused the “rest of your life” for chapter VI out of X and are blind to the fact that something meaningful is coming; that the great Storyteller is writing in a scene to bring the great things in your life full-circle? And what if the Storyteller knows that your story needs chapter VI for it to be a good story, and that really the main point to the story is how you’ll change in your quest to get what you want? And what if this change in your character brings also a slight change in you want anyway? What if you are just three chapters away from the part where the character overcomes the conflict and gets what he really wants?—alg
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